"Alt. More Worlds Than Known" by Proto-Kaw

Here I am I'm alive again, still wondering who
Out the window the sun shines in, saying give it a try
I take it all and then I give it back,
and it never seems to go away,
it's a promised day, a long promised day

We have not always been so blind, long ago we could see
Was a time we could take it all, rooted deep like a tree
Now I watch as it comes falling down,
and it seems there's little else to do,
is it the same for you? the same for you.....


Underneath this veneer it lies, taking toll of the time
Till' you see it for what it is, with no reason or rhyme
How strange it is just to die to live,
and it never ever goes away,
it's a promised day (a long promised day)

Help me live my life again

These Moments We Have

The hope is what gets me. The hope that there is something better. That our limited expressions of love — because of both time and our imperfect nature — can actually be enough. That’s what overwhelms me. These moments we have to love each other are always limited and restrained. And often only when we become devastatingly aware of their transient nature, do we fully experience them. There is such hurt and hope, loss and gain, joy and pain, and they all mix together in one big, overpowering mess that what can we do but cry?

Cry over brokenness. Cry over our fears. Our failings. Past failings and future failings. Cry over these indescribable feelings of love that we experience towards others. And from others — which make us feel unworthy....

And maybe when we have these moments of weeping from deep within ourselves, maybe it is more about the hope than the hopelessness. That despite all of the pain and loss that life ultimately makes sense and is good and is worth living. And that we’re worth it. And others are too. And all of this loving and the losing that goes along with it — well, that’s the best part. And sometimes a good cry and a few moments with someone you’re about to lose can mean more than a month of Sundays and a pat on the back.

[via VanderMeander]

Edging Ahead

It’s an agonizing time when you feel your peers edging ahead and the cool people aren’t seeking you out and almost every day somebody announces a cool new job, or a big romance, or the receipt of an awesome gift, some fresh kill from the jungle, and it depresses you. You don’t want to be a loser. And you sense the fact that, in life, so much — so very much — is pure luck, no matter what they want you to think, and an angel may knock at your door in the person of a beggar, and you say No, and that No will resound for the rest of your born days. It is agonizing to think about.

Garrison Keillor

[via Salon, HT: Randall Friesen]

Pointed Somewhere Else

Such demagogues are con artists. And they're good at it. But recognizing that is where things get tricky and difficult to talk about.

Good con artists are difficult to prosecute. This is true, in part, because getting conned is viewed differently than being the victim of other forms of crime. There's a sense of shame, or at least of embarrassment, on the part of the victims, so they're less likely than other crime victims to report the crimes. Con artists know this, and they exploit it -- sometimes compounding that embarrassment by working a con that relies on the mark's greed or chauvinism or some other trait they are unlikely to be proud of and thus making the victim feel complicit in their own victimhood.

It's never easy to tell someone they're being conned. "You've been hoodwinked. You've been had. You've been took," Malcolm X said. "You've been bamboozled." But nobody wants to hear that, even if it's true. Especially not if it's true. It sounds too much like, "You've been a sucker." Or even, "You've been stupid." It seems to add insult to injury so people reject both the message and the messenger. Even if that means continuing to subject themselves to the ongoing injury of the scam. They are, after all, accustomed to it.

Consider, for example, the state-run lotteries.

[via slacktivist]

An Islamless World by Martin E. Marty

[HT: Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

The Key Moment Has Happened

He was opening up his calendar and putting a timeframe on redemption. He was assigning power and promise to weeks and months. Hoping that if he stacked up days up like bandages, his wife would forgive him.

But the past is seductive. When I look back in the rear view mirror, it’s constantly swelling its chest, appearing more important than it is, adding details to memories, hiding others in the shadows, recreating what really happened. I like to think that my memories are documentaries, full of fact and truth, but they’re more like summer blockbusters. Full of special effects and illusions....

For him it’s much simpler. There are only two conditions, dead or alive, lost or found. There is no need to wait for time to heal any wounds or to weigh out time gone versus time obedient. The rescued has occurred, the key moment has happened.

No calendar cannot change that.

Time cannot offer that kind of healing.

[via Stuff Christians Like]

Multiple Superheros

April 18-20: New York Comic Con
April 18-20: New York Papal Visit
Coincidence? We think not.

The Vatican knew exactly what they were doing. It was their attempt to make a full-scale frontal assault on American popular culture. Faced with a decision between comic books and holy scriptures, multiple superheros and a single savior, action figures and crucifixions, graphic novels and encyclicals, between the greatest artist in comic book history (Stan Lee) and the second most popular pope of the last four years (Benedict XVI), who did they expect us to choose? {continue...}

[via Wittenburg Door]

Desperate Housewives Go To Church?

[via Abandon Image]

Differences Between Proud and Broken People

[via Grace and Truth to You]

A Half-Century of the Symbol of Peace

Peace Then, Peace Now, and Real Peace

[via Wittenburg Door]

Mutual Realization, Infinite Potential

.In friendship, the Other personalizes the good (or true or beautiful) in a way that includes my own participation, so that friendship becomes an interactive revelation and intensification of the good...

Friendship is never simply a matter of who. The what (what is said, what is done, what is shared) is highly relevant to the realization of relationship because it can foster the mutual realization of the true, good, and beautiful, the correlate of persons. The what makes the who more robust....Greater depth of friendship (philia) becomes possible as friends progress in the good, and this happy phenomenon is another indication that person is the correlate of the true, good, and beautiful...Friendships that do not remain dynamic tend to wither. The friendship must go forward in pursuit of more truth, beauty, and goodness so that ever greater gifts of self can be given and received. Personal participation in the transcendentals keeps friendship fresh."

From Person, Grace, and God by Philip Rolnick

[HT: Faith Dance]

Spiraling Out



[via Forbidden Closet of Mysteries]

Religious Order Continues to Blend In, Make No Real Difference in Community

[via catholicnews.org]

Schism and Fitna

A Saudi blogger has made a short video featuring alleged Christian extremists preaching violence and a Bible passage calling for war, in response to an anti-Quran film that sparked protests across the Muslim world.

Raed al-Saeed told The Associated Press on Thursday that the purpose of his six-minute video is to show Islam should not be judged by watching Dutch filmmaker Geert Wilders' movie "Fitna," which links terror attacks by Muslim extremists with texts from the Quran.

"It is easy to take parts of any holy book that are out of (context) and make it sound like the most inhumane book ever written," al-Saeed said in a statement posted at the end of his video. "This is what Geert Wilders did to gather more supporters to his hateful ideology. To create schism." {continue...}

[via The Raw Story, HT: Mainstream Baptist]

In The Interest of Sport

Honestly, I don't know. Though I end up watching some of the games, I have lost a great deal of interest. The games seem to have lost much meaning. On the athletic front, they were the rarified air where obscure sports specialists practiced their craft or even mainstream competitors got to play at a international level. But now? Tennis players compete in international competitions every day. And each year, we are given some "sport" like snowboarding or motocross bikes or trampoline.

But the great olympic moments of the past have been deeply connected to the cold war, and when that ended, the games degenerated into just another sporting event. Worse, they degenerated into a huge orgy of consumption and advertising, complete with idiot coverage that injects "drama" into every moment. Well, every moment about American athletes. Who can forget the "rivalry" between the American and Australian swim teams? Yawn.

But this year is different. {continue...}

[via Streak's Blog]

Great Struggles, Deep Irony, Significant Change

[via Grace and Truth to You]

Throw Away Problems

So after I've bought it again, I throw it away again. Some people do this with music. Some do it with friends. Why do we do it?

Because, it's easier to deal with the symptoms of a problem than it is the cause of a problem. Throwing away music and movies and other stuff is simple. Going inside to understand why I am drawn to these things or what need I feel they will feel is complicated. So I buy Fight Club. I throw away Fight Club. I buy Fight Club. I throw away Fight Club.

It's a problem.

[via Stuff Christians Like]

Is Oprah the Next Billy Graham?

[via Christ and Pop Culture, HT: Provocative Church]

Today an old soul, born a day late,
Will walk into tomorrow. {the rest}

[via Of a Pastoral Wannabe]

Martin Luther King's Righteous Anger

[via Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

[via indexed]

Real Time, Real Solutions

We tolerate our own side and are intolerant about the other side. We advocate one set of rules for our group and another for the other group.

While most of us can smell a political or personal double standard, we are less likely to recognize another form of the two-standard approach. We speak abstractly about high moral standards and refuse to apply concretely those standards in real time to real situations. {the rest}

[via Ethics Daily, HT: Mainstream Baptist]